Photography Adventure: Wetlands Wildlife

Acorn Point Lodge on ReelFoot Lake in Northwest Tennessee is one of my favorite places to experience a wildlife photography adventure (http://www.acornpointlodge.com/). From St. Louis, Missouri it's about a 4 hour drive. One of the great things about this spot is that it is just South of where the Ohio River converges with the Mississippi, thus both the Mississippi flyway of birds that migrate from Alaska and the North West, and the birds that migrate from the Northeast, congregate here.

My goal for this trip was to photograph, among other things, the Osprey that nest on cypress trees way out in the center of of the lake. ReelFoot lake is a massive wetlands ranging in depth of only 5 feet to 18 feet. The lake is huge and comprised of a series of channels and sub sections. It is easy to get lost on this lake, so plan ahead, bring a compass and phone, and look back to make a mind map of the landmarks. Wide channels can be obscured by trees and lilly pad fields, which makes the adventure even more interesting.

I find I am always tweaking my settings to arive at an exposure that minimizes photoshop time later. Taking the laptop along was a big help because at the end of a day of experimentation I was able to see the results, evaluate what I could do better, and make adjustments accordingly the next day. Water foul are some of my favorite subjects, and considering this lake's abundance of fish, there is ample opportunity to test settings on great white egrets.

No words can do justice to the beauty of this lake, so I will just leave you with some of my favorite settings before posting the shots. To freeze the action on those birds in flight, I crank the ISO up to 800 or even 1600. Then take some shots in program mode. Why? Because at a high ISO the camera will select a high shutter speed to compensate and bring the exposure almost down to a good level. There is a huge amount of contrast between a white egret and the mossy trees and dark green water, so center weighting provides an exposure closer to my desired end result. Once the camera decides what it likes for the amount of light coming in, I look at what the camera picked, switch over to manual, choose almost the same settings but tweak it down a notch on the light meter bar. I find the camera's auto settings are just brighter than I personally prefer.

Finally I want to thank our most gracious hosts, Natalie and Jack Denton. Acorn Point lodge is a beautiful lodge with an attached deck, a floating dock, a massive picture window, several boats for excursions, and excellent accomodations and hospitality. Be sure to book early, especially if you want to go during peak seasons, because the lodge fills up fast.

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